Obama Receives Middling Support From Americans On Ukraine Crisis

While President Barack Obama receives generally negative ratings for his response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the American public approves of imposing sanctions on Russia for its role in the crisis, a pair of polls released Tuesday finds.

A Washington Post/ABC News poll finds that 42 percent of Americans favor the president’s response to the situation involving Russia and Ukraine, while 43 percent disapprove and 15 percent have no opinion.

The president fares even worse in a poll released by Pew Research, which found that just 30 percent of American adults approve of the president’s performance on the issue and 44 percent disapprove. A full 26 percent had no opinion.

Yet while approval of the president’s response remains tepid, Americans favor the actions Obama has taken and do not wish him to go further. The Post/ABC poll found that 56 percent of respondents support the United States and its European allies imposing sanctions on Russia. Only 31 percent of respondents opposed sanctions.

Without the support of European allies, Post/ABC found that support for sanctions dropped to just 40 percent. A slight majority of 51 percent of respondents opposed sanctions without European involvement.

Sanctions, however, seem about as far as the American public is willing to go. According to Pew, 56 percent did not want the United States to get too involved in the situation in Ukraine, while 29 percent said that the U.S. should take a firm stance against Russia.

The president measures less support in the new crop of polls on the Ukraine issue than he did in a CNN poll released Monday. CNN found 48 percent of respondents approving of Obama’s performance on the issue, while 43 percent disapproved and 9 percent were unsure.

The Post/ABC poll was conducted March 5-9 among 1,014 American adults. The Pew poll was a combination of two studies, conducted between February 27-March 2 and March 6-9, among 1,002 and 1,003 adults. Both used live telephone calls to both landlines and cell phones.

A Ukrainian police officer (L) and a pro-Russian volunteer (R) detain a topless activist of the Ukrainian women movement Femen, protesting against the war in front of Cremea's parliament during a pro-Russian rally in Simferopol on March 6, 2014. AFP PHOTO / ALEXANDER NEMENOV (Photo credit should read ALEXANDER NEMENOV/AFP/Getty Images)